Pittman v. Parillo
| Decision Date | 21 April 2017 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals No. L-16-1140 |
| Citation | 2017 Ohio 1477 |
| Parties | Raymond H. Pittman, III, et al. Appellants v. Nick Parillo, et al. Appellees |
| Court | Ohio Court of Appeals |
DECISION AND JUDGMENT
Raymond H. Pittman, III, John A. Smalley and Benjamin Felton, for appellants.
Gregory H. Wagoner and Rebecca E. Shope, for appellees Nick Parillo, Mike Mankowski, Sylvania Tam-O'Shanter Sports, Inc. and Sylvania Area Joint Recreation District.
Jason M. Van Dam and Daniel T. Ellis, for appellee Anthony P. Spinazze.
{¶ 1} This is an appeal from a May 31, 2016 summary judgment ruling of the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas, granting summary judgment to appellees. For the reasons set forth below, this court affirms the judgment of the trial court.
{¶ 2} Appellants, Raymond and Ann Pittman, set forth the five (5) following assignments of error:
{¶ 3} The following undisputed facts are relevant to this appeal. This case stems from the participation of appellants' minor son in youth hockey leagues and related events at the Tam-O-Shanter athletic facility located in Sylvania, Ohio.
{¶ 4} The genesis of this matter lies in appellants' subjective perception that their ten-year-old son did not receive an adequate amount of playing time in a youth hockey scrimmage game. That perception on a seemingly innocuous subject inexplicably unleashed a series of events rooted in animus and retribution directed by appellants against appellees.
{¶ 5} On May 4, 2014, shortly after the subject scrimmage game, Ann Pittman sent an email to her son's coach obtusely alleging without any discernible basis, (Emphasis added). This initial email conceded the possibility that it could be, "[S]imply a mother's misinterpretation."
{¶ 6} The following day, on May 5, 2014, Raymond Pittman sent a follow-up email to the coach conveying, Apparently, appellants suffered from the fervent belief that during the third period portion of the scrimmage game, their son received inadequate playing time in comparison to the other team members.
{¶ 7} On May 6, 2014, the coach replied in a professional, polite, and detailed email. It conveyed in pertinent part, Appellants' course of action following the reasoned reply by the coach is when the matter quickly escalated and spiraled out of control.
{¶ 8} Interestingly, on May 6, 2014, shortly after receipt of the email response from the coach, Ann Pittman sent another email to a different official at Tam-O-Shanter unilaterally claiming to having been previously subjected during the prior summer to improper "attention" from a male member of the youth hockey coaching staff.
{¶ 9} In coordination with this, on May 6, 2014, Raymond Pittman sent another email perniciously proclaiming without any evidence whatsoever that the subject hockey coaching staff member, Notably, this belligerent email was sent just one day after Raymond Pittman's initial email questioning the amount of third period playing time allotted to his son in the May 4, 2014 scrimmage.
{¶ 10} Appellants' reflexively adversarial course of conduct quickly escalated. On May 14, 2014, Raymond Pittman left a petulant, plainly threatening voicemail foranother Sylvania official cautioning, (Emphasis added).
{¶ 11} The record also reflects that Raymond Pittman repeatedly emphasized his professional position as an attorney and repeatedly attempted to intimidate appellees with a promised array of legal consequences if they failed to concur and capitulate on the various baseless claims. For example, in the May 6, 2014 email filed at the onset of this matter, Raymond Pittman portended, (Emphasis added). The record reflects that despite several years of exhaustive discovery, no evidence collaborating appellants' claims was discovered. However, on the contrary, the record reflects that the discovery process did reveal appellants' pattern of tactically issuing unsubstantiated claims to advance a personal agenda.
{¶ 12} Approximately a month after the subject scrimmage game, on June 19, 2014, appellants filed a complaint setting forth a litany of perfunctory, unsupported allegations purporting to demonstrate sexual harassment by various Sylvania hockey personnel and athletic officials directed at Ann Pittman.
{¶ 13} The record reflects that the sum total of appellants' purported evidence was comprised of unilateral allegations of "flirting," "leering," "smiling," "staring," "attempts to make eye contact," and so on.
{¶ 14} The record reflects that as a result of the illusory claims of appellants, 35 depositions were taken and considerable, costly discovery was necessitated in a case entirely devoid of any actual evidence of any unlawful conduct.
{¶ 15} The record shows that Ann Pittman has issued similar dubious claims against others. The record shows that the veracity of any of the claims by Ann Pittman has never been established.
{¶ 16} Given a record devoid of actual evidence, during Ann Pittman's deposition, she was asked to articulate the basis of why she believed that one of the appellees had been somehow improperly "flirting" with her. She vacuously replied, "[L]ike he kept like smiling-- like he just was-- it was very animated, very smiley, like I saw his teeth like a million times." Suffice it to say, even assuming arguendo the legitimacy of the characterization, no unlawful act was described.
{¶ 17} Notably, in a case rooted entirely upon unsupported claims of improper "looks" or "leers" of an alleged sexual nature directed against Ann Pittman by male staff or coaches affiliated with Tam-O-Shanter, one of Raymond Pittman's first emails to Tam-O-Shanter regarding the alleged matter ironically demanded, "Did you describe her as the pretty redhead that she is and that I told you to refer to her as?" Raymond Pittmandemanding that his wife be characterized in such a way to the alleged wrongdoers in the context of a case such as this is paradoxical.
{¶ 18} The record is devoid of evidence of any improper remarks being made to Ann Pittman. The record is devoid of evidence of any improper physical touching being made to Ann Pittman. The record is devoid of evidence of any improper communications; verbal, email, text, voicemail, or any other method or mode of communication, being directed to Ann Pittman.
{¶ 19} On the contrary, the record consists solely of ambiguous, unilateral, unsupported, and conclusory claims of alleged improper "flirting," "leering," "smiling," "staring," and alleged illicit efforts to "make eye contact." None of the claims were in any way collaborated or substantiated.
{¶ 20} Ultimately, on May 31, 2016, the trial court granted summary judgment to all of the appellees on each and every count pending before the trial court. The record reflects that the trial court summary judgment ruling was exceptionally detailed, precise, and exhaustive. This appeal ensued.
{¶ 21} All of the assignments of error stem from the premise that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to appellees. As such, they will be addressed simultaneously.
{¶ 22} It is well-settled that an appellate court reviews the trial court's granting of summary judgment on a de novo basis, applying the same standard used by the trial court. Lorain Nat'l Bank v. Saratoga Apts., 61 Ohio App.3d 127, 572 N.E.2d 198 (9thDist.1989). Summary judgment will be granted when there remains no genuine issue of material fact and, when construing the evidence most strongly in favor of the non-moving party, reasonable minds can only conclude that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Civ.R. 56(C).
{¶ 23} We have reviewed and considered this matter. We find that the record is devoid of any evidence whatsoever in support of appellants' claims....
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